Here's a few pictures of my cichlids with my new lens, the Tamron 17-50mm f/2.8. I'm completely in love with this lens, and have hardly taken it off my camera since I got it

Here's a half decent one (finally) of my sub-sub dominant male Saulosi. The sub-dominant male has been making a go for king of the tank, and the current dominant male is giving him a run for his money, so this guy has been a bit less shy, since he's not getting picked on as much now. You can see a bit of yellow fringing around his fins, and a just a faint hint of black barring on his side.



Here's Sonic, my male Red Empress.



And, the obligatory 'showing off my new lens' shot (100%!!! blows the kit lens out of the water)



This one was taken at 17mm. You can see the dominant male Saulosi on the far left, and the blue and black one top right is the sub-dominant male, the two yellow ones are female Saulosi. The brown fish in the front is a sub-dominant male rusty.

[southlander]

Great photos, great fish and great tank set-up! Your Empress is a true beauty. Your feeding regime is obviously very good.

I went from the kit lens to the Tammy a little under a year ago. The different was stark the moment I uploaded the first photos to my computer. For the money I think the Tammy is a steal. I remain very happy with mine, and it is my standard lens on the camera now.

This link is to some shots I took last weekend with it (using a CPL to deal with the very strong sun on the day).

Steamranger Cockle Train

I'm curious as to what lighting you used for your fish images. If you have one of those expensive fancy colour-optimised aquarium lighting setups, I imagine that might be enough by itself for fish that stop and hover in one spot for a moment.

[Na Horuk]

Fish in tanks are really hard to photography, you did great. nice photos

[Stoogie]

Thanks Southlander! I liked your set as well, that tammy sure doesn't leave much to be desired, does it.

Na Horuk, they are indeed a challenge! It's been fun and instructive though, figuring out what works and what doesn't. It's nice to finally be able to get a few shots that do the fish justice.

My tank lighting consists of two cheapo power-glow fluorescents, and an Ikea 'dioder' colour changing LED light, which I use to fine tune the colour. It's not a particularly bright setup, which I think the fish appreciate. For the pictures, I used an off camera flash held above the tank to allow me to shoot straight on through the glass, which minimizes distortion.

Oh, and I feed New Life Spectrum pellets 3x daily, 6 days a week, with a few shelled peas thrown in every couple days for a treat and to aid digestion.

[dadster18]

Beautiful shot here Stoogie. As I'm close to pulling the trigger on buying this lens to replace my kit lens I'm curious how much PP was done to the image.

[Stoogie]

Thanks Dadster! For the 100% crop, the PP that was done was curves/levels adjustment, and removal of a bunch of algae on the glass that I thought I had cleaned. I also used inverse diffusion sharpening, but only a tiny bit to make the scales pop a bit more. I find that if I try to use an unsharp mask or similar sharpening methods, it looks overdone as the lens is already just about as sharp as I could want.

[Jacquot]

Great photographs! Having bred Cichlids a long time ago, I really appreciate this. I'd love to start a new big tank again! Unusual to get this good a capture of their color, and I like your comments, too.
David

[bigdog104]

Great captures, beautiful detail, especially on the third one. I am not that familiar with aquariums so I will leave that discussion to the experts but just got the 17-50 myself and looking forward to seeing what it can do.

[jford]

Beautiful work - wonderful colors. Great captures - didn't even have to "fence" 'em off.
But which one has the new lens?
Thanks for sharing.

[hcarvalhoalves]

Beautiful pictures! What's your tank lightning setup? Halogen?

[Stoogie]

Thanks David! With all the wintery Vancouver weather lately (a.k.a. rain) I've been pretty much stuck using my camera indoors, so I consider myself very lucky to have such colourful and interesting subjects.

Bigdog, I think you're going to love the Tammy 17-50mm, I sure do!

Unfortunately it isn't waterproof, so the fish will have to continue using my Nikon aw-100 The 'Easy Auto' mode comes in handy for them, as they have a hard time changing settings and navigating through the labyrinthine menu, and they have little to no grasp of the exposure triangle.

[Stoogie]

Actually, my lighting setup is a bit out of the ordinary. I have two power-glo fluorescent bulbs, that give off light that is somewhere between magenta and purple. In addition, I have four LED bars that I can change the colour of (the Ikea "Dioder" lights, actually), from anywhere to red to violet. All I had to do then was fiddle with the colour of the LED bars until I got the exact right overall colour (a nice white with a touch of blue) so that all the colours of the fish really pop, and the aquascaping still looks normal. Sometimes I will use just the LED lights, and change the colours to produce some very interesting effects. (i.e. under certain blue wavelengths, my normally yellow saulosi appear bright red, while everything else in the tank is very subdued monotone blue. I'll try take a shot of it)

[romansolar]

wow, great photographs and subjects, nice comment. Enjoyed reading i used to have a big tank too, keep up great work